Stop Numbing and Start Feeling: Journey from the Ashes with Erica GumienyStop Numbing and Start Feeling: Journey from the Ashes with Erica Gumieny
Recovery Recharged with Ellen Stewart Pushy Broad from the Bronx
Getting sober was supposed to make life better—but what happens when putting down the drink means finally feeling everything you were trying not to feel? Erica Gumieny opens up about alcohol, grief, changing relationships, losing her identity as...
29:02•14 Oct 2026
Stop Numbing and Start Feeling: Erica Gumieny on Grief, Sobriety and Finding Herself
Episode Overview
- Stopping drinking can bring a rush of long‑avoided feelings, and support tools like education apps, Al‑Anon and therapy can help you handle them.
- Alcohol may feel like a source of fun and confidence, but it often leads to blackout behaviour and intense next‑day anxiety as the years go on.
- Learning the science of alcohol’s impact on dopamine can shift how you see drinking, making abstinence feel more like freedom than deprivation.
- Sobriety can change relationships and social circles, but it can also create space for new, healthier activities and connections that match who you really are.
- Daily practices, such as reading Journey from the Ashes, can help challenge lies about not being enough and remind you that you’re loved exactly as you are.
“You are loved just the way you are. Period. You are amazing and beautiful, and you don't need anything. You're great.”
What insights can experts and survivors share about addiction? Here, Ellen Stewart sits down with her friend and fellow broadcaster Erica Gumieny to talk honestly about what happens when you stop numbing and start feeling. The chat begins with Erica describing the “sobering event” of her sister’s unexpected death and the decision to stay “crystal clear” through that grief.
She explains years of trying to “moderate” and the familiar pattern of blackout nights followed by “extreme anxiety the next day, certain that I did something terrible.” Growing up in a small Wisconsin town packed with bars, drinking became part of her identity as “party-fun Erica”. You’ll hear how putting the bottle down didn’t magically fix everything; instead, it exposed raw emotion.
Erica talks about using tools like an educational alcohol app, Al‑Anon, therapy and her faith to understand that “alcohol actually steals the dopamine that you’re thinking it’s going to give you” and that “alcohol is a poison. It is not helping you.” She shares the awkwardness of early sobriety, when life seemed to revolve around not drinking, and how that gradually shifted into simply living.
Erica also talks about her book, *Journey from the Ashes*, a daily read built around “unlearning the lies that you believe about yourself”, and offers gentle words to anyone in early recovery: “I understand the pain that you’re feeling… but on the other side, there is something so amazingly beautiful that it’s going to blow your mind.” If you’ve ever wondered who you are without alcohol or drugs, this conversation might prompt you to ask a brave question of your own: what could your life look like if you stopped numbing and started feeling?
There’s humour in her description of counting the drinkers in a room and quietly leaving once the “collective shift” hits, alongside a very tender look at grief, family change, and breaking what she calls a “generational curse”.
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